Let Gilmore provide the vision and let the rest of us repossess our own Republic

WHEN Brian Cowen became Taoiseach, the litmus test of his style was whether he would reshuffle Mary Harney.

A young woman of immense moral courage in her time, an able Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, her decision to take on the Byzantine monster of Health and Children was a gamble too far.

There is no room in governance for sentiment or for the cosseting of pals, especially in a national emergency. But Cowen did not reshuffle her, or others. He never realised the cosy mixture as before would not suffice and that an altogether different style of captaincy was needed.